Clergy Workshop

Wounded by Witness: Vicarious Trauma, Spiritual Injury, and Pastoral Identity

Friday, September 17th at 11:15 AM

Presented by Fr. Andrew Kearns, DMin, ThM, BCC

Clergy regularly encounter profound human suffering through confession, pastoral counseling, trauma, grief, addiction, and crisis ministry. The theological implications of the psychological phenomenon known as vicarious trauma remain underdeveloped. This workshop examines vicarious trauma not merely as emotional exhaustion or compassion fatigue, but as a form of spiritual injury that destabilizes meaning, identity, and one’s relationship with God, self, and the world. Drawing from theological anthropology, pastoral theology, and trauma theory, this workshop proposes that prolonged exposure to suffering can place clergy within a liminal space of identity reformation requiring renewed integration through communion, spiritual honesty, and embodied pastoral care. Key to this journey will be creative helplessness & ‘radical’ vulnerability.

Workshop Highlights:

  • 1

    Vicarious Trauma: The Particular Vulnerability of Orthodox Clergy

  • 2

    Witnessing Trauma: The Priest as Receiver of Human Suffering

  • 3

    Entering Liminality: Spiritual Injury and the Crisis of Meaning

  • 4

    Reformation Through Communion: Integration & Healing

  • 5

    Interdisciplinary Reflection with Q&A Discussion

Key Take-Away:

This clergy‑only workshop will offer an integrative framework for understanding how repeated encounters with suffering may wound meaning, identity, and faith itself for Orthodox Clergy. We will also explore the various Orthodox Christian practices informed by modern psychological techniques that may be engaged to support healing, resilience, and renewed pastoral integration.

This workshop is made possible through a generous grant from the Hellenic Foundation.